When DC rolled out its new website, we remarked on how much of a West Coast DC project this was. Although we were just guessing, here’s an interview with VP of Interactive Marketing Jason James talking about the new website. Fan reaction has been a bit unkind, but then…when isn’t it? And yet, the goal is to engage, engage, engage.
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Jason James: I am always looking for ways to engage the fans. What I’m really trying to establish here is that we are the one-stop shop, we are the catalog of all things DC Entertainment. I am hoping fans start with us and then if there is an article on Entertainment Weekly about “Man of Steel” or an article on Scott Snyder on CBR, they will go there. Kind of like a trusted source.

I am really looking to create a two-way conversation with fans. Just looking at message boards and commentary on social media sites, it looks like they are dying for it, so I want to put them closer to the site, the company, me, and the talent. If they have questions, I want to make sure we are answering, and we might even ask a question back and keep the conversation going. I really want to know what is going on. I want to know what they are thinking. I am as much of a fan as they are.


James is a comics lover—he wrote some of those Gotham Girls webisodes back in the day—so his enthusiasm is probably genuine.

One interesting little sidebar: when the site launched, people noted that the “DC creators” Twitter feed seemed mostly concerned with that day’s news of the Valiant relaunch. Have Twitter guidelines been released? Maybe.

What about the creators’ Twitter stream that appears on many pages — will you moderate that?
James: We moderate it. We have standards we have discussed with them, and everybody who is ingested in via those modules and Twitter feeds is totally on board with what we are doing.

1 COMMENT

  1. I find the Twitter feeds to be boring… usually they are replies to others who have commented on an original Tweet.

    I’d prefer to just see the original Tweet, and a link to Twitter where I can then follow the longer thread.

    Filter out any Tweet which starts with “@” and it will be much more engaging. Also, how about displaying the five latest Facebook postings? And Google Plus?

    To avoid a cluttered look, make those feeds hideable. Click on the button, and the list expands to show the latest postings. Then click on the posting to be taken to Twitter, or wherever.

  2. I like Jason, but to be fair he was hired when the website was 75% done. He had about as much of an impact on it, as I do.

    How about we talk to the CW team. From what I understand they built the site.

  3. I’m often redirected to the vertigo site when i look for DC stuff and i can submit feedback about the site because ther is no enter button to submit feedback.

    the search engine for comics can’t make the difference between floppies, TP, HC, …

  4. If you don’t see the “submit” button for the site feedback, it’s accessible if you click anywhere in the feedback pop-up, hold down the left mouse button and scroll down at the same time. Another example of how inefficient the site truly is.

  5. How about a website about DC COMICS? Instead of a boring tribute to the genius of JIm Lee and the ALL IMPORTANT ‘let’s all interact and be all facebooky and tweety and oh aren’t we sooooo super cool and modern and down with the kids!!!!!”

    Yeah. That’ll happen…

  6. Word to the wise:
    Either it’s a law, or just a web design standard…

    Scroll to the bottom of any company home page, and you’ll find the indicia… the masthead… the boring stuff like “About Us”, “Site Map”, “Privacy Policy”…

    That’s the first place to look for: “Contact Us”.

    http://www.dcentertainment.com/contact